On The Importance of Niceness

One of the first things my mother ever told me was to 'be nice' and to 'play nice'. I didn't appreciate the importance of the life lesson she was teaching me at the time. My mother had many phrases to help prepare me for the world - sometimes, I'm ashamed to say, I forget some of them.

These days the word nice seems to be denigrated. Being nice is often seen as a sign of weakness and naivety. Believe me if you meet really nice people they are anything but. It takes a great deal of strength to be nice in this world, to not retaliate angrily when provoked - I try hard, but sometimes I fail. I always greatly admire those who can maintain their composure in the face of great provocation.

As a country I always thought that we were generally nice, polite and caring. Over recent years I have watched this vision collapse as I have watched politicians fight for the good of themselves, not their country. I have  watched powerful people manipulate and divide the population and some even encourage hatred and division. My country has changed from a place I loved to one I am often ashamed of.  The current political climate and newspapers encourage anger and I see so many people, who would have agreed to disagree, arguing vociferously. Sadly social media has given an extra voice to to this vitriol with people rising to bait and anger increasing.

So what can we do? My mother always told me to never retaliate with anger -'That's just lowering yourself to their level' Another favourite phrase of hers was 'Don't bear grudges, because while your sitting at home nursing your grudge, they're out dancing' Over the years I have seen the wisdom of her words. Whenever possible, when faced with an argumentative person who is not prepared to listen or debate, I walk away with my dignity intact. Indeed I am firmly of the opinion that when a person begins to yell, they have already lost the argument.

As I was leaving to start my first day at university I was quite anxious. My mother's advice was 'Just be kind' then she followed me out to the hall and added 'But don't let anyone walk over you!' Wise words from a wise woman. She taught me to stand up for myself too but in an assertive, not an aggressive manner. 'You can say no nicely Janet' As the saying goes 'it costs nothing to be nice' I try to be so whenever I can and I usually find that people are invariably nice in return. Over the years I have met a lot of very nice people and, from each of them I have learned a little more about the kind of person I would like to be, I'm not there yet. I hope I do get there one day. I try hard because I want my mother to look down and be proud of me.

If we all try hard to be a little kinder and a little nicer we can change the world for the better. Try random acts of kindness, a nice word or a compliment to brighten someone's day and don't rise to anger bait or get drawn into other people's aggressive worlds, Every time you refuse to retaliate there is a little less anger in the world - and you did that.

Shall we all make an agreement to try being a little nicer, a little kinder and a little more understanding? Each time we do we make this world a better place.

Oh and remember the words of the song 'Those hardest to love need it the most' - you could make a real difference in someone's life.

Above all - just play nice.

We don't always like the same books and that is just fine

Reading, I have always found to be a very personal thing. We each have our favourite authors and genres. Some of us stick to those and rarely branch outside their comfort zones, others read a whole variety of books and styles, some prefer novels, some non fiction books, others choose graphic novels. All are fine.I remember reading somewhere that if you don't like to read then you just haven't found the right book. I have to agree. Books are not a one size fits all.

People who do not like tomato sauce and wouldn't eat lasagne or bolognese would never dream of telling you to do the same and yet people will tell you never to read a book because they hated it. There are not many books that I do not finish but there have been a few - most recently Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. I had been looking forward to it for so long because I had read so many wonderful reviews of it and it was recommended by many people who's opinions I trust. Sadly I just could not get along with the story at all and eventually gave up. This doesn't mean that it was a poor book or that it was badly written, neither are true. It just was not for me and that is fine. I know how much it is valued but life is too short to struggle along with something you are not enjoying.

After discarding the Capote I started an Elizabeth Gaskill which I absolutely loved - but of course I would as I adore Victorian Literature. I am sure that some of you would never choose a piece from that period because it is not your genre of choice. I would think you are missing out but, as I have said before, it is each to his own. I struggle with a lot of Science Fiction novels and really would not choose one specifically had it not been recommended by a friend. Again, this is no reflection on the work, it is just my personal preference. Through recommendations I have branched out to H G Wells, John Wyndham and one Philip K Dick and loved them all so maybe there is hope for me as a Science Fiction reader after all.

When I read a book I enjoy I will say how much I loved it and recommend it, I cannot guarantee that those who choose to read it after me will do so too, and I am sorry if you do not, but I like to share my enthusiasms. If I really do not enjoy a book I will either not comment at all or simply say that I struggled a little or that it was not for me. I try not to give negative reviews because 1 know that we are all different and I would not like to put someone off a book they may enjoy just because I did not. I also am fully aware that I have never written a book and do not have the skill or time to do so and wouldn't give a damning review to someone who has. I will always call out prejudice but other than that I will just not recommend.

The only other thing I will say about reading is not to be put off what you enjoy because someone else does not think that it is good enough. What you enjoy is what you enjoy and that is always good enough. If you like reading books for younger readers that is fine, if you prefer comic books that is also fine. I struggle with deep philosophy books and ancient literature but I have a friend who adores them.

So the message in today's blog is to find what you enjoy reading, read it and don't let anyone put you off. If you want to branch out sometimes do so but do it because you want to, not because you have been forced to. Reading is a gift to enjoy and I do hope that you enjoy it.

The Joy of Children's Literature

Children's Literature is a genre that is frequently overlooked by adults setting reading lists and goals. As we mature we put aside childish things and move on to what we consider 'greater' works. This is such a pity because, in doing this, we deprive ourselves of so much wonderful literature.

As a child I read and enjoyed many children's classics. Some I read to myself, others were read to me. All left wonderful memories and helped shape the reader I am today. The joy of those books never left me and when I had children of my own I bought new copies of those I'd given away and enjoyed the stories all over again. We found books that I had missed as a child and some new ones too. I looked forward to bedtime story time as much as my children. We read the What Katy Did books, the Shoe books, My Naughty Little Sister, Harry Potter, Wilma Tenderfoot. We laughed, we cried and we loved every minute.

As our children grew and were ready to move to secondary school they had progressed from having stories read at bedtime and were happier reading to themselves. Oh how I still miss those bedtime stories.

In recent years we have cleared shelves and found books that my children read that I missed. Two years ago I read Polyanna for the first time, what a lovely, positive story. Last year my daughter recommended I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith, a book that she had read in Y4.  I decided to give it a go. I absolutely loved it and remembered how it felt to be a teenager. It was at this point that I decided to ask people for recommendations of children's books. I was given so many and am gradually working my way through them. I was introduced to Erich Kastner by a friend in Germany and read The Flying Classroom, a delightful book, filled with the kindness and positivity I love. Next month I hope to read Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster. I have a very long list now and so this year I have decided to include one children's book a month in my reading list - some new, some old favourites.

One of the suggestions in my Hygge list is to 'read a favourite book from childhood' I did that in November and December with The Hundred and One Dalmations and A Christmas Carol. There is something very comforting about reading a story from back in your youth,. It transports you back to the happy, secure place where you first read the story and, despite gloomy news on tv and in newspapers, it gives you a tremendous feeling of well being.

Sadly, as a teacher, I would sometimes hear children being told by parents that they were 'too big' for some stories. This always made me feel sad. I would tell them that you are never too big for any children's story and be it a younger age book or a comic, as long as they were reading and enjoying it, that was all that mattered.

And what of those who say that now we are adults we shouldn't read children's stories? Well, they are either reading the wrong children's stories or have been poisoned by a sceptical age that frowns on anything they consider to be immature. Personally I would recommend that you all try some children's fiction and make your world a little brighter. They are written for you too. As C S Lewis said 'A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.' and he wrote some great children's stories. I know because I read them for the first time as an adult.

Now, make your world better and go find a really good children's book or, if you have any you think I should read, please let me know,

The year is growing old and I feel a little sad, but this year I have Hygge

This morning I was wakened by the sound of lots of geese flying over our house, a sure sign that autumn has arrived. I have known it was coming for weeks. I have felt it in the air, I have been able to smell it and I have seen it in the subtle changes in the leaves.

When I was young this was my favourite season. I loved the colours, I loved the feel of it as the cold air wrapped its arms around you and hugged you, I loved the smell of bonfires, but as I have grown older I find I like it less. Spring is my new favourite season, filled with promise and new life. To me autumn now makes the year feel like a friend in the twilight of their years who you know is approaching the end (Winter and another year gone). I think the problem is that I suffer with S.A.D. and as I have become older I have begun to associate Autumn with the approach of feeling bad.

This year I am even more determined to do battle with this condition. I always start to feel a little down as September approaches. I think that stems from when I was a teenager and the approach heralded the end of the wonderful summer holidays and the return to school. Now when the children go back to school I always get the urge to buy stationery and sweaters. This retail therapy cheers me for a while but then comes October with the dark nights and frequently gloomy days and I'm sad all over again.

This year I have decided to do battle with my S.A.D. and I am starting early. Today I got out my S.A.D. lamp. It's only August but it's gloomy and with a cold I can't quite beat I'm already a little out of sorts. I am also making plans to make this Autumn and winter a much happier time than usual. I may not beat it totally but I may make some difference. I have been researching Hygge - Danish secrets to happy living and am about to adopt Hygge myself.

So, what are my plans?

1   Fairy lights and candles around the house to give it a magical feel
2   Delighting in walks - I used to love walking the dog, there's no reason I can't walk on my own
3   Steaming mugs of tea, hot chocolate, chai lattes and a good book
4   Crunching dried leaves
5   Baking parkin, apple crumbles, cinnamon crunches
6   Knitting - I knitted through last winter and it helped
7   Warm bubble baths
8   Snuggly rugs for watching TV under
9   Baking bread
10 Reading a favourite book from childhood
11 Gathering leaves and twigs to make a nature collage
12 Cosying up with a favourite childhood film
13 Dressing the bed with new, brushed cotton linen
14 Getting comfy by the window and watching the birds outside
15 Taking an evening away from the TV and playing board games
16 Trying out a farmshop for breakfast or lunch
17 Wearing a warm jumper and leggings & treating myself to 20 minutes meditation
18 Lighting a scented candle
19 Doing some colouring in
20 Inviting family round for a roast dinner
21 Starting a gratitude journal in a beautiful, new notebook
22 Snuggling up in woolies - socks, jumpers, hats, scarfs

As you can see I have plenty planned. I shall let you know how it goes. I'm really hoping that Hygge, vitamin D and my S.A.D lamp will get me through this winter mostly smiling. So if you see me wandering about in the park picking up twigs or you come visit and the house looks like Christmas came early be indulgent and remember Hygge.

The Reader Who Was Stolen Away (A Fable)

Polly was born in 2004, on a sunny spring day. She was named Polly after her Mother's favourite story character Pollyanna who thought for herself and was always positive and cheerful.

Polly was born into a world of books. People of my generation see that as a world of magic - and for many years Polly's world was magical. First there were board books that you could touch and taste, then came simple story books with happy, fun characters and ones that told you that your parents would always love you no matter what. Every night Polly's parents would read to her, initially brightly coloured picture books and then gradually books with more and more words in them. Polly explored the world, she went on adventures, she laughed, cried and learned with friends she had made in books.

When Polly was 4 she started school. Her favourite time was when the teacher would gather her class together on the carpet and read to them. Polly would come home and tell her parents all that had happened in that day's lovely book. As she grew up she found there were more and more books and more and more adventures and lives she could explore.

Then, one day, something dreadful happened. A man with a heart of stone took over Polly's future. His world was cold and hard. He lived by figures and acquisitions. He didn't understand how books could be read just for pleasure. He thought that they should be broken up and separated into individual sentences and analysed. It was important for Polly to learn fronted adverbials and causal connectives. She must learn to recite poems by heart, not just enjoy the beauty of them. Polly still loved to be read to but gradually she stopped listening in school as the beautiful stories were dissected before her. She would look out of the window at the clouds and imagine she could travel to a world beyond them, filled with magical people and sweet shops. Polly began to get into trouble for not paying attention and then she thought that she was a bad girl for not concentrating.

She asked her parents to let her read for herself now that she was bigger. After all they just read stories and thought they were fun. Polly knew now that stories were to be broken down and analysed. That was how you really read. And all the books her parents bought her were wrong. She knew what books she was to read - she had a set list.

Gradually Polly came to realise that reading wasn't for her. She was 'no good' at it and neither were her friends. She became very good at repetition and regurgitating information but the adventurer with the imagination that would have changed the world was lost, crushed beneath a world of rules and regulations. Her mother watched that adventurer die and, as Polly went out into the world of work just the same as everyone else, her individuality stolen, she cried.

A Day With Emily Brontë

Last weekend I made one of my frequent pilgrimages to the home of my beloved Brontë sisters. As this year is the 200th anniversary of Emily's birth I decided that I would go in search of Emily Brontë. At first I was a little disappointed because I felt the exhibition hadn't focused on her enough but then when I came home and looked over my photographs Emily was there throughout in the quiet, retiring way she always was. This blog looks at some of those photographs and goes in search of Emily Brontë.

I started the search in the front garden of the Brontë Parsonage, walking where Emily often walked, chatting to her sisters. A little time should always be spent here before walking up the steps and into their home. I always feel a tingle as I enter the Parsonage as though I expect one of the sisters to appear and talk to me. Oh how wonderful that would be, to travel in time and find out what they were really like. I have so many questions.

Once inside you turn right and enter Rev Brontë's study. Here one of the most prominent things is

Emily's piano. Emily was by far and away the most musically talented of the sisters and played this piano often. I would love to hear how it sounded. It was played at the Parsonage in 2010 following some restoration work. I'm rather sad I missed it.

From Rev. Brontë's study you cross to the sitting room opposite. Here you find the table at which

Emily wrote Wuthering Heights and around which the sisters would pace nightly. reading their stories to each other.

To the right of the table is the disputed sofa. Disputed in that some people claim that this is the sofa upon which Emily breathed her last breath. Whether this is true or not I cannot say but I always feel sad when I look at it. Emily had refused to see a doctor for her consumption until the day she died, regarding them all as 'quacks' She died about two o'clock in the afternoon and being a person who rose daily despite her illness she could well have been on the sofa, as Mary Robinson said. The discrepancy comes because Charlotte refers to Keeper lying at the side of his mistress's deathbed. I choose to accept the sofa could have been made up as a day bed. You may accept whatever version you choose. We will never know.

The next room you enter is the kitchen. In here Emily would help the servants peel potatoes and

bake bread. (this photo was taken last September during Branwell's bicentenary year) I love the fact that Emily was so down to earth and grounded to the extent that, when a well loved servant grew older and sicker, she stepped in to ease her burden.

For this year Emily's Christening mug has been moved to the kitchen display cabinet. I love this mug, I love its simplicity. It reflects Emily's personality so well.

From the kitchen you move opposite to Rev Nicholl's study. For this, Emily's bicentenary year a very special manuscript is on display here. For some time people have been taking turns to write a line of a Wuthering Heights to complete a copy of the novel. I am a little sad that my visits have never coincided with the hour when this was taking place.

From Arthur Bell Nicholl's study you come out and climb the stairs. Over the staircase is a copy of a

portrait by Branwell Brontë of his three sisters, sadly with himself painted out. I always feel it is the spirits of the sisters watching over their old home. I also feel that their expression disapproves of the strangers walking through - yet I still go.

The first room upstairs where I feel a connection with Emily Brontë is the children's playroom, where they made up their stories and wrote their mini books as children.

The room is somewhat smaller than it was when the Brontë children played there as the right hand wall has been moved inwards by later residents, still this was where Emily played and the imagination that produced her wonderful novel was fed.

Passing through a recreation of Branwell Brontë's studio you reach a room filled with treasures. In display cases are such things as a sampler completed by Emily in March 1829;

Emily's mahogany artist box;

Then your heart breaks as you see one of the mourning cards sent by Charlotte following Emily's death at such a very young age by today's standards

 This year as you descend the stairs to the special exhibition area there are many more memories of Emily, both possessions and artwork

This is a sketch of a mullioned window, the earliest known sketch by Emily then aged 10, 19th January 1829

Then there is a tin box used by Emily to hide her diary papers. Viewing this made me think of the scene in To Walk Invisible where Emily comes downstairs so angry that someone has tampered with her things.

Next comes a diary paper of Emily's mixing fact and fiction, writing about the coronation of Queen Victoria and a similar event in Gondal

In the following cabinet is a toy lion played with by Emily and her brother and sisters as children

This is a wonderful sketch of a fir tree by Emily, probably drawn from nature circa 1842

Here are the three sisters' author signatures, this I found really exciting - this was the beginning of the publication of those wonderful novels.

In the next cabinet, wonderfully preserved are a pair of stockings, hair tongs and comb used by Emily Brontë. 

In the final cabinet is an unfinished sketch of St Simeon Stylites by Emily Brontë, 4th March 1833.

So as you see I spent a day with far more memories of Emily Brontë than I could have imagined and, looking back over that Saturday, I feel closer to her than ever.

This time I wanted to remember Emily as she was, hardworking, artistic and strong so I omitted a trip to St Michael and All Angels but next time, as is usual, I shall go to pay my respects. I may even take her some heather.

Book Review - Little Women

                                                    LITTLE WOMEN
                                                 By Louisa May Alcott

This was a delightful book from start to finish. The fact that I thought so and commented on what a happy book it was surprised my daughter who had other memories of reading it and there being some moments where she expected me to cry. I began to wonder if we had read two different books - I did some research and found that we had and we hadn't. The version that I read was a copy of the original book, first published in 1868 which was intended to be a Happy Ever after stand alone novel. As the book did so well Alcott's publisher pestered her for a sequel - in 1869 that sequel, called Good Wives, was published. Over here the two books continued as separate editions whilst in America they were combined under the one title of Little Women. My daughter read the combined version, hence our different experiences.

Little Women is set during the American Civil War and focuses on the lives of the March sisters. Their father is away serving as a pastor in the war and they and their mother struggle a little to make ends meet. They do, however, have plenty of love and positive attitudes and their adventures are a joy to read. The lives of the girls are explored through a series of events and celebrations and are compared with the lonely Laurie who lives next door with his wealthy grandfather and how a friendship is built between the two families.

The characters are a delight - shy Beth, tomboy Jo, beautiful Meg and little Amy all grow and learn in this story. Even when they go wrong they are brought back, forgiven and learn from their experiences. As I said before I found it to be a delightful book filled with happiness and fun. Now I am undecided about reading Good Wives. I loved this one but apparently the sequel will make me cry and a little frustrated.

So should you read it?
9/10 - an absolute joy (but if you read the combined version instead, don't blame me if it isn't as happy as you expected)